Saturday, March 14, 2015

In The Shakespeare
Conspiracy, Graham Phillips and Martin Keatman set down four intriguing
occurrences in archival records (dated between 1592 and 1603) of the name
William or Will Hall, plus one of Hall, that appeared to connect him to the
world of British intelligence.1 The authors conjectured that William Shakespeare from
Stratford-upon-Avon was a secret agent who employed the name as an alias when
engaged in intelligence activities. The name would help explain the enigmatic
dedication to Shake-speares Sonnets.
Assuming that the one space in the dedication was a code that meant no space, while
dots meant spaces, one could find a hidden message that Mr. W. Hall was the
begetter or author of the Sonnets.2 The dedication begins:

Peter Farey listed these occurrences and wondered whether William Hall might have been a cover name for Christopher
Marlowe. He added that he had not confirmed the information in the Phillips and
Keatman book.

I attempted to make the confirmation. I was already
suspicious because Phillips and Keatman claimed that the inverted dot/space
cipher was described in a 1608 published pamphlet by Thomas Hariot. In fact,
Hariot published only one work, in 1585. Phillips and Keatman listed their
sources for William Hall as: Historical
Manuscripts Commission (HMC) Cecil 4; State Papers (SP) Hamburg III; Public
Records Office (PRO) SP 106/2; and HMC Cecil 20. Oddly, they did not list as sources
the Canterbury Archives and Chamber Treasurer accounts which they seemed to cite.

At the Folger Shakespeare Library, I checked the Cecil
Papers both via the Calendar of the Manuscripts of the Most Hon. The Marquis of
Salisbury Preserved at Hatfield House and via the Cecil Papers electronic
database now available online from ProQuest. I looked for any occurrences of
William or W. Hall with various spellings and abbreviations from 1580-1620
which could in any way be interpreted as related to intelligence activities. I
also checked the Public Records Office Calendar of State Papers, Domestic,
1580-1610, and List and Analysis of State Papers Foreign, only available for 1589-1596.
I did not have access to SP Hamburg III.

I found none of the instances that Phillips and Keatman
cited. The best I could come up with in terms of an interesting reference to
“Hall” was a note by Sir Robert Sidney to the Earl of Essex dated Sept. 24,
1596, Flushing, stating this his letter was so short because he “found this
bearer, Mr. Hall, ready to start” (HMC Cecil Part VI, p. 398). But this gives
us no first name, nor can we tell whether Mr. Hall was employed by Sidney or
Essex, or merely someone willing to carry a letter.

Graham Phillips, sometimes writing with Keatman, penned
thirteen books investigating historical mysteries, including The Virgin Mary Conspiracy, Alexander the Great: Murder in Babylon,
and The Templars and the Ark of the
Covenant. With such a prodigious output on a wide variety of subjects, it
would not be surprising to find that some information provided in The Shakespeare Conspiracy was incorrect.
I attempted to contact Phillips through his website, but the email address
posted is no longer valid. We should, of course, continue to search for aliases
employed by Christopher Marlowe, but at this point I am skeptical that “William
Hall” was one of them.

1Phillips, Graham and Martin Keatman. The Shakespeare Conspiracy. London: Random House, 1994. 158-173; 180-181; 215.2 Sidney Lee proposed that printer William Hall, who was apprenticed to John Allde in 1577-1584, was "W.H." for the same reason. See Robert Fleissner's Shakespeare and the Matter of the Crux: Textual, Topical, Onomastic, Authorial, and Other Puzzlements (Lewistown, PA: Mellen Press, 1991), 67-100; 243-247.

The blog is closed

Ted Hughes, British Poet Laureate (1984-1998)

"The way to really develop as a writer is to make yourself a political outcast, so that you have to live in secret. This is how Marlowe developed into Shakespeare."

Letters of Ted Hughes, ed. Christopher Reid, Faber 2007, p.120

Welcome to MSC: the Web's #1 Blog on Christopher Marlowe

We kicked off in May 2008. We're a blog dedicated to the brilliant Elizabethan playwright Christopher Marlowe. Yes, we believe he could have authored many of the Shakespeare works, and so we offer up hearty servings of delicious intrigue. Thanks for visiting!

THE MARLOWE-AS-SHAKESPEARE CONSPIRACY LAID OUT FOR YOU!

Poets' Corner, London's Westminster Abbey

See the question mark?

THE POWER OF US: KIT Marlowe Up, Earl of Oxford Down

"Meanwhile, the authorship debate shows no signs of fading away. Francis Bacon's star has waned, eclipsed long ago by the Earl of Oxford's. Now Christopher Marlowe's star is on the rise. 'It looks like there's a shelf life to every candidate' of about 75 or 80 years, Shapiro says. 'There's a lot more energy and enthusiasm behind Marlowe.'"

Christopher Marlowe - prodigy, successful playwright/poet, and pretty darn good spy for Queen Elizabeth - lands himself in the kind of hot water that may send him to the gallows. His powerful handlers in espionage, concerned about saving their talented agent, decide to fake his death and send him away. Marlowe, in hiding, continues to write plays and poems. William Shakespeare agrees to be the frontman for these works.

"perfect"

From Amazon: "Rodney Bolt’s book is not an attempt to prove that, rather than dying at 29 in a tavern brawl, Christopher Marlowe staged his own death, fled to Europe, and went on to write the work attributed to Shakespeare. Instead, it takes that as the starting point for a playful and brilliantly written 'fake biography' of Marlowe, which turns out to be a life of the Bard as well." The Spectator praises: "A triumph...perfect." Click the pic to purchase! And click here for our interview with Rodney Bolt!

Buy This!

Wonder who wrote Shakespeare? Mike Rubbo's Much Ado About Something makes a compelling case that it was Marlowe. As seen on PBS Frontline and now on DVD. Elvis Mitchell of the New York Times praises: " . . . an inviting piece of film . . . Much Ado About Something is a film of ideas - well, notions, anyway - that are bound to stimulate discussion, an aspect long missing from documentary." Click the pic to purchase! (or rent it today on Netflix!) Click here for our print interview with Mike Rubbo, click here for our video interview. Click here for an 8-minute preview of the film. Click here for a Tampa Tribune feature about Mike Rubbo.

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